CURVES SERIES

CURVES draws on my portrait practice to explore the tension between authorial control and the unpredictability of the photographic process. What began as a response to idealised representations of the body gradually became an investigation of how photography produces a likeness.

I print studio portraits and photograph them again through moving water. The source photograph remains still; refraction, water movement and exposure time change the image recorded by the camera. A short exposure captures a single optical state, while a longer exposure brings successive states into one photograph. Features may overlap, lose definition or become less visible. I set the conditions and select the final images, but cannot fully predict the forms that emerge.

The series includes faces, figures and fragments of the body. A gaze, a gesture or a contour may remain readable when familiar proportions and individual features become unclear. I am interested in what allows us to recognise something human in an image that no longer preserves a familiar likeness.

The distortions arise in front of the camera, without digitally reshaping the photographs. The camera records a real optical event, yet the resulting image can show anatomy the person never had. CURVES explores this gap between a person, their photographic image and what a viewer can still recognise within it.